Mount Gilead Baptist Church - Fort Worth, TX
N 32° 45.311 W 097° 19.669
14S E 656647 N 3625384
The Mount Gilead Baptist Church is at 600 Grove St, Fort Worth, TX. Sunday services are at 10 AM.
Waymark Code: WM132KT
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 09/02/2020
Views: 0
This historic church greets visitors coming into Downtown Fort Worth from Spur 280. Despite its historicity, the church has no website of their own, and while their Facebook page is very active socially, it provides no history. The
BlackPast.org website comes to the rescue, with some really good reading. It notes that Mount Gilead is the oldest continuously operating African-American Baptist Church in Fort Worth, established in 1875 by twelve freedmen who built a small sanctuary just a few blocks from here. Over time, it became a virtual megachurch, the "mother church of Fort Worth black Baptists." Today, the congregation is much smaller, and the church has survived acquisition attempts that may have resulted in its demolition to pave the way for more "progress" here in Downtown.
The brick, Neo-Classical sanctuary itself opened up in 1913, and it was designed by black architect Wallace Rayfield. It features a pipe organ, elaborate opera chairs in the balcony, and "the first indoor baptismal" in Texas. Its design has a sense of community purpose, as it includes a law library, classrooms, a cafeteria, a gym, and even a swimming pool to provide respite during the days of Jim Crow. The Architecture in Fort Worth website notes J.W.O. Guinn and B.W. Owens as the contractors, indicating that Mr. Rayfield was a "contributing architect" and mentioning Sanguinet & Staats as the architects, so who actually did what is apparently a matter of discussion.